Man, what a year. Some really weird, amazing, depressing, suprisingly and outright terrible things have happened over the course of the last 12 months - hell of a year. While I was putting this list together I realised this is my 5th year on this site, my first list declaring Batman my favourite game of the year seems so long ago.
2013 might as well have been the year of the 3DS for me, with 6 3DS titles featuring on this list, bolstered by my ever present masochism to play JRPGs.
So, after filtering out games that didn't come out this year (and not getting around to playing The Last of Us), I ended up with 12 on my initial list, eventually cutting Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (I'm sorry company that employs me!) and the easy decision of...
Argh, seriously. It takes a lot for us to dislike Fifa, but it was blatant that the 360 version was shoehorned together from the new engine AND the momentum changes might all very well be realistic - but I'll be damned if they're any fun at all :(
I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to playing you Dark Souls!
Games I wish I played more of this year include Tomb Raider, Rayman Legends and Assassin's Creed IV but I haven't played enough of them to rate them.
Anyway, here's the list!
Showing 1-10 of 10 items
So as expected Tales of Xillia is my num...WHAT? No Tales game at Number 1? No! Because Dual Destinies is freaking awesome! As far as games series' I really enjoy, Ace Attorney is up there sitting alongside Tales having a big ole' lovefest and having waited over 5 years since the last 'mainline' game (a large period of that not even knowing there would be another one), playing this game and it being very good was just perfect. The Mood Matrix is a neat new mechanic, the 3D artwork lends itself to more creative animations (Case 3's villain breakdown being a highlight), the characters are generally very-well defined - Apollo gets much, much more rounded out than in his own game - and the music, while always a strong point, is once again fantastic. Dual Destinies is a really great ace Attorney game, and while being less difficult than some of the previous entries, you're there for the story and the whodunnit part of it, and it holds up on those accounts well. The reveal of the villain in the final case is MINDBLOWING and in the DLC you defend an orca. AN ORCA! GO PLAY IT (after you play all the others...)
Yes, in a shocking turn of events this is at number 2! I love Tales games and Xillia is a solid one. Much more interesting characters and story than Graces, a battle system that suited me more and a surprising number of dark moments (Alvin's entire story arc with his childhood, his mother and during the 'break' in the middle was pretty harsh). The two stories differing based on your main character was done well enough and the voice acting as a whole was up to a good standard. Even the mascot character wasn't too annoying this time around. It still doesn't knock Vesperia off the top of my 'current gen' (or last-gen now? I dunno) Tales games, being comparatively quite short and limited in scope in terms of the world design. That being said, bring on Xillia 2 and Zestiria looks like it has an open-world again, which makes me very happy.
I really, really liked Infinite. Under scrutiny the story falters a little, the mechanics were very combat-focused and the 'must scavenge EVERYTHING' of the previous games still overshadowed a lot of the non-combat, but overall I really, really liked Infinite. The game was just full of amazing moments and they carried it. The Voice acting was excellent, the alternate versions of modern music were very clever (and explained into the story) and flying around on the skylines was a lot of fun. The story was full of really interesting tidbits (if you found the voxophones) and I appreciated the ending pretty much shutting out a Bioshock 4. Also had the first "HOLY SHIT" moment of the year right near the end with Songbird, you know the bit...
I love Link to the Past and beyond the little (and large) nods to that game in terms of world map, alternate dimension mechanic, characters, items and (really well-done) rearranged music, there's still a really stellar Zelda game here in it's own right. Having no set order of dungeons to tackle (thanks to the item renting) is really invigorating and the 'painting' mechanic lends itself to some very clever puzzles. GUYS THEY MADE A SEQUEL TO LINK TO THE PAST AND IT'S PRETTY COOL!
I never really did play many Final Fantasy games, especially ones with a Job System or neither The Four Heroes of Light - which this is pretty much a spiritual successor to. So I went into this off a pretty crummy demo, not sure if I'd like the mechanics and based solely on hype. I've played 17 hours in 4 days. It's pretty good! The Brave/Default mechanic took a while to get used to, but being able to take turns in advance or store them up adds a good dynamic to turn-based combat and this game also gives you one of the best ever things in the options screen - the ability to scale random encouters from 200% to 0% (Yes, OFF!) whenever you want. Also, the music is AMAZING.
Oh hey, it's not a 3DS game or an RPG! I was sold on Rogue Legacy after only watching about 5 minutes of it. A competent action-platformer, with an interesting setup (the traits through your lineage) and awesome music kept me playing this for quite a while. Having your level increase every time you died also helped keep that sense of progession, which was a neat touch.
Pokémon is awesome. The 3D polygonal visuals were a nice upgrade (finally) and the new type, 'mons and a whole bunch of other tweaks still keep it super interesting for me. It doesn't hurt that lots of people seem to come out of the woodwork when a new game is released.
Strategy RPGs, bah, but I finally found one I liked! I'm not even sure why, but having the characters be a lot more personable unlike something like X-Com made me want to keep playing. The plot's ok, but the running joke of no-one being able to see Kellam (aka, dude in GIANT ARMOUR) was really funny.
I never got the appeal of Animal Crossing really, but just picking it up for 20 minutes at a time and chopping trees, messing around with my house and pulling weeds is more relaxing than I'd realised. Plus going to other people's towns and digging holes everywhere will never not amuse me.
Easily wins the "Best use of a Welshman" award for Mr.Drippy and is a really charming RPG. It got bogged down in the late game for being a bit repetitive (and only having one field battle theme - which while really good - wore out it's welcome after a while). Still, flippin' tidy mun!
